Chinese Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing)

These scallion pancakes are a wonderful appetizer dipped in soy or other sauces. 

Chinese Scallion Pancakes are made with unleavened dough rather than batter, and are flaky from layers of thinly stretched out dough that is filled with scallions.

I have always wanted to try making these scallion pancakes, so when Mayuri of Mayuri's Jikoni, our Bread Bakers host blog for this month, came up with the theme, pancakes from around the world, I jumped on it. By the way, you will not believe the line up of pancake recipes! If you are a fan of international foods, you definitely need to check out all of the links after the recipe. Scroll all the way down. Pretty amazing. Thanks for the inspiration Mayuri.

These scallion pancakes are delicious served immediately, with chili sauce or a soy and vinegar dipping sauce (recipe below). The flavor from the scallions, sea salt, and toasted sesame oil is wonderful.

By the way, while every recipe I found said that they should be served right away, I found that reheating leftovers in a dry frying pan (a trick I use for leftover French fries) revived them beautifully!

While some recipes call for using a rolling pin, I used my oiled hands to stretch out the dough on a Silpat. Feel free to give a rolling pin a try if it works for you. I find that I can get the dough thinner by using my hands. Don't worry if the dough tears. When you roll it up, no one will know.

Also, some recipes for these Scallion Pancakes call for sugar, but I decided to leave it out so that I could fry these a bit longer without burning them.

This recipe calls for two kinds of oil, toasted sesame oil, and peanut or vegetable oil. The sesame oil, which is lightly spread over the layers of dough, adds a wonderful flavor, but is not a great oil for frying. The peanut or vegetable oil has a high smoke point, perfect for frying these at a high heat.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup hot water
• Generous pinch of salt
• About 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
• 1 bunch of scallions, chopped
• Coarse sea salt or Kosher salt
• Peanut or vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Mix the flour, water, and pinch of salt in the bowl of a stand mixer or a food processor. You can also knead this dough by hand. The dough should be smooth and elastic. Spray the dough with spray oil, or rub it with oiled hands. Let the dough rest, covered with plastic wrap, for about 30 minutes.
2. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Lightly oil a Silpat or your counter with oil, and, using your oiled hands, press and pull the dough out as thinly as possible into a circle. With your hands, rub the dough with sesame oil, and sprinkle with 1/8th of the scallions. Sprinkle lightly with the kosher salt.
3. Rub your hands with sesame oil and roll up the dough into a log. Coil the log like a snail, and then flatten it with your hands into a 6 inch disk.
4. Heat a wok or heavy frying pan on medium high and add a tablespoon of peanut or vegetable oil. When the oil shimmers, place the flattened dough in the pan, and fry on one side, one to two minutes, until browned. Flip and cook on the other side until browned. Place the finished pancake on paper towels. Repeat with the rest of the pancakes, adding more oil as needed, until finished.

Yield: 8 pancakes

Serve with chili sauce or a soy vinegar sauce. To make the soy vinegar sauce, mix 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of Chinese black vinegar or balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, and a some chopped scallions. I've also dipped these in Korean Gochujang. Delicious. 

Check out the Pancakes from different parts of the world that our fellow Bread Bakers have baked this month:

• Alagar Kovil Dosai from Sara’s Tasty Buds
• Blueberry Dutch Baby from Hostess At Heart
• Brown Rice Dosa (Indian Savory Crepes) from Spiceroots
• Corn Pancakes from Kids and Chic
• Dutch Baby from Herbivore Cucina
• Hotteok (Korean Pancakes) from Cook’s Hideout
• Hotteok (Korean Stuffed Pancakes) from Passion Kneaded
• Keralan Yeast Appam from Food Lust People Love
• Malpua (Sweet Indian Crepes) from SimplyVeggies
• Oven Baked Tropical Pancakes from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Pannukkau (Finish Pancakes) from Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
• Potato Latkes (Jewish Pancakes) from Sneha’s Recipes
• Srilankan Hoppers from I camp in my Kitchen
• Strawberry Nutella Crepes from Spill the Spices
• Swedish Pancakes from Palatable Pastime

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely bread by following our Pinterest board right here.